Pearls and Coal
by delta sun bottleneck stomp
Summary: blaise/gabrielle


a/n: haha.

i think i got the ages wrong, by about four years, but that's okay

because if i hadn't, it'd probably be considered pedophilia

--

They were quite the couple, contrasting against eachother in such a way. He believed that he was good for her, as she was for him. He would help her live, she would help him stay grounded. But Blaise Zabini only liked to think so because of that innocent look she gave him. And soon after he had met her, he had come to the conclusion that she had been the only person he'd ever met that made him experience guilt. And he wasn't cold-hearted, of course not. Perhaps he was just different. He didn't pity the same things that others pitied. One thing he did pity, however, were those much-too-perfect powder blue eyes, that delivered such trust to him that he couldn't possibly say no.

They didn't speak much. When they did, it was usually about something petty. He liked it that way, and supposed she did too. There was no malice in her bones, nothing like him. He, like many others his age, had felt the coldness of war, the aching of teen-aged 'heartbreak'. He would wonder about death in his spare time, not because he was depressed, but because he had always wondered what was on the other side. But he decided that she was much too pure to ever hold those feelings, because when she looked at him, she smiled. And they were like pearls and coal. Opposites. It made sense to him.

He'd never been one to have flings, or affairs, though he couldn't quite find long-term relationships anything but boring. He had always guessed that he was just too hard to please, and it was his own fault.

But when he pondered her, he wanted both, and he wasn't sure if a long-term fling was even possible. He tended to stray, get bored. And she would always have the ability to pull him back and make him stay with her. For the rest of his days, he would shake his head and claim that no other woman would ever be able to control him like she did.

She was always gentle, and he was always impatient. She was calm. She liked to sit in the armchair and read a magazine. He liked to roam the streets and drink until he could barely stand. And she would always win the arguments, which, he was surprisingly just fine with, because she was usually right.

He had told her that she was the kind of person that he could see being happy, growing old.

She had responded by stating that she believed he would never grow old.

"You're the kind of person that will die young," She stated certainly, "but you'll have lived two times as much in your years that I have when I'm on my deathbed."

It was the only serious talk he'd ever had with her, and she abruptly went back to her uncorrupted, chaste self.

Their meeting was unavoidable. They were both young, attractive purebloods - they were bound to run into eachother at some point.

Another Christmas party, with pompous, old bastards waltzing around with their flutes of champagne and talking casually about how despicable Mudbloods are. And him, discretely going up the marble staircase to get away from such bad company.

He would simply pass her as he went down the hallway, not giving a second glance to the small, light-haired girl sitting at the bay window and sewing a torn seam in an old piece of clothing. It would only be the second time he passed that he would notice.

She was only sixteen, she told him. Attending Beauxbatons. Repairing a worn skirt that she'd found in her mother's closet because she wanted to wear it. She had a nice French accent, he noted, and sometimes resembled a doll when her face wasn't animated, which was almost never.

He was eighteen, well out of school and searching for ways to escape the towering manor he had to call home, that was also unfortunately occupied by his unstable parental figure.

They spoke in hushed tones, as not to attract any unwanted attention. When someone would pass by, they would fall silent and smile feebly until the arrival had disappeared. He didn't really remember what they were talking about, because he spent most of his time nodding at whatever she said and examining her carefully. He'd seen her before, of course, and heard of her, and perhaps spoken to her a long, long time ago, but he never really remembered thinking much of her.

When she was done sewing the skirt, she sighed and looked at him with an expectant expression.

"Well, I suppose I have to go now."

She told him where she lived and told him to contact her if he ever needed anything. They said good bye and that was that.

--

And soon, Winter was long gone and they stopped speaking altogether. To be honest, he rarely thought about her. Maybe for a fleeting second, when he was alone and had nothing to do. Spring had arrived, and it quickly shifted into Summer. Another god-damned Summer. Only this time, he didn't have school not to look forward to. Just a blank page.

So he left his home and found an average-looking apartment on the outskirts of London. He wasn't struggling; he had money, he had food, and shelter. But he was bored, and restless. It was the perfect timing, for her to just be there so conveniently. She was his cure for boredom, and he wasn't about to let that go.

He had written her, suggesting she have lunch with him. They had things to talk about, surely, with such a short time to speak during Winter. She quickly obliged and they met for the second time, at a nice cafe on a sunny, cloudless day in July. She was almost seventeen, excited for the new year of school, and he almost felt guilty because he had nothing to tell her about himself. There wasn't much to say, except for small things, and they slipped into a comfortable silence quickly.

She hadn't been drunk, or drugged, and neither had he. But on some unlikely circumstance, they ended up fumbling around hurriedly in his dark apartment, and Blaise had silently hoped that she wouldn't look back and wish her first time had been different.

She didn't get up and walk out the door while he was sleeping, like all the other one night stands he'd had in the past. She stayed closely to his side for hours, breathing steadily and keeping quiet, moving every now and then just a bit. At when he predicted that it was around five in the afternoon, she shifted, reaching over to pull up the blinds and pad into the kitchen to prepare some tea. He was completely confused.

And it was that day that she wrote her mother to say that she'd be spending a day or two down at their beach house, and that she would keep in touch. She never left for the beach house, and Blaise found he liked her company quite genuinely. He didn't learn much about her, just as she didn't learn much about him. They talked about things above the surface, most of the time. It never bothered him, and sometimes she would chatter away about school and he would watch with a simple curiosity.

She lingered around his apartment the whole Summer, sporadically. But the sun had to set some time, and in a month, she was throwing things in her suitcase for school. She would go back to France, and he would stay in London, half-heartedly looking for something to do and writing every so often. She kissed him and gave him a broad smile, and he examined her closely, trying to find a trace of anything other than pure, elegant virtue. Until the moment he died, he had never seen the weight of the world in her eyes, and he always felt a pang of guilt, knowing that someday, she just might have to feel it crush her until she could barely breathe.

--

a/n:

my little contribution to the scarce 'blaise/gabrielle' shipping

i don't really go on fanfiction much, but i was writing this story and suddenly realized that i could twist it to make it a bzgd pairing and decided that there wasn't enough material on those two, so i might as well add to it.

yeah i _am_ pretty generous


End file.
